


I Wish To Hope

by GodOfWar



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1967, Angst, Crowley was Raphael before he fell, Heartbreak, Holy Water, Hurt No Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, I've made it worse, M/M, Other, Scene: Soho 1967 (Good Omens), Self-Esteem Issues, Translation Available, and the year was, it's not relevant to the plot but it's the hill I'm dying on, no comfort, you know how this was sad in canon yes?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfWar/pseuds/GodOfWar
Summary: His throne is hard and tall and pointless, because for all its grandiose, it can not make him king and it can not make him free.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	I Wish To Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Translation in Russian by Poliana Snape can be found on [Ficbook](http://ficbook.net/readfic/9321083)

When Aziraphale left the car he left behind silence so great and deafening, that Crowley thought for a while that he might have lost his hearing. It hanged in the air, heavy and cold and more empty then the vast nooks of the universe before his Mother, laughing at his wonder, put golden dust in his hands and threw him up, like he was a young hawk just learning to fly, to fill the Darkness with his light.

There was no light, now. No Grace. No warmth. He sat, frozen to the bone, hands clenched on the steering wheel and _aching_.

Time must have passed, here in this strange dimension where things actually happened one second after the other. The chilly darkness bled into a cooler grey morning and Crowley finally moved, hand creeping up to his chest, resting there just to see...to confirm...

His heart wasn't beating. Strange, how it still hurt so much while being so quiet, no longer fluttering like a hummingbird swooping around fragrant flowers. Strange how one sentence can hit so hard that one completely useless organ that worked perfectly fine for over five millenia - since the moment people figured out that it was something it should be doing - suddenly stopped working, breaking like an old clock without announcing which tick was going to be its last.

It was rejection, wasn't it?

Plain and simple. Should be used to it by now, should…

Bentley started. The low vibration of engine breaking the silence. Crowley didn't see the road, his forehead rested on the wheel, eyes firmly glued to inconspicuous thermos sitting on Aziraphale's place. Like a replacement.

He hated it.

He was afraid of it.

He lost his best friend over it. Or maybe his only friend. 

Because they were friends, weren't they? Nobody spends so much time with somebody without becoming a friend. It was not the first time Aziraphale said something…said…

Crowley had a list of things Aziraphale said to him over millenia. The good one. And the bad one. On most days he was confused which is which. On days he feels particularly good or downright awful he doesn't lie to himself and knows the difference right to his bones.

He was wasted as an angel, no matter how high he had flown the doubts brought him down and finally chained him to a different master. He is wasted as a demon, too, what with that small lingering sliver of Grace that was like a blight that poisoned him with morals and love and wonder. Sometimes he wondered if he was even meant to be or if he was just a bunch of particles flicked off Her hands and left like a dirty spot on the carpet after more important job was done. Unfinished or unplanned, slapped together from wrong parts and left with a gaping hole, with maw full of sharp teeth to gnaw restlessly on barely put together scraps he menaged to salvage from the wreckage of his Fall.

He somehow stood in his flat, flask in hand, with no memory of how he got there. He sits when his legs bow under him and cries when his eyes refused to be convinced they don't have tear ducts.

His throne is hard an tall and pointless, because for all its grandiose it can not make him king and it can not make him free.

He wished...

He wished for many things. And irony was in that that the universe would bent to his wishes backwards and sideways but never on the things that truly mattered. So, as the things stood, everything he needed, every stupid undemonic thing he ever craved was out of his reach. Do other demons suffer the same way? Was that what eternal damnation was about? To have everything inches from your grasping fingers and no matter how far you walk, no matter the soundless plead for mercy, no matter how much hope burns through your stomach, to never be gifted with salvation.

It was an old song.

This watching the world unfold and sprawl at your feet but not touching, never touching, because you can't touch happiness while encased in a tomb of glass. He is buried...buried so deep. And falling, falling endlessly with only short painful stops on the way that make it all worse. Was there a ground? Would he shatter one day while hitting the bottom or just turn brittle and flaky long before that when the weight of eternity press onto his shoulders?

He fallows the tartan pattern on the thermos full of liquid nothingness, stands up, puts it inside the safe.

It stares at him in accusation.

He closes the door with a click, hides it like a shameful secret as the world turns into a blur of bleak muted grey. He is safe from it, but…what point is the safety when the entire reason for gaining it stared at his face and told him 'no' in words so gentle and understanding that it hurt all the more for the knowledge of what might-have-been?


End file.
